0:01

Hey listeners, in our last episode

0:03

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0:05

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0:08

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0:10

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0:14

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0:17

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0:20

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0:49

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Thanks.

0:53

You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

1:03

In the film and TV industry, sound

1:05

editors often use sound libraries to

1:07

find the effects they need. Many of

1:09

these recordings go back decades, and

1:11

certain sounds end up getting used over

1:14

and over.

1:15

For instance, here's a recording you've probably

1:17

heard called two cats angrily yowling

1:20

during cat fight.

1:25

These cat sounds have shown up in hundreds

1:28

of movies and TV shows. For

1:30

instance, they're often used for the Simpsons

1:32

cat, Snowball.

1:40

The origins of these cat sounds are a bit

1:43

hazy, but there's a good chance that they were

1:45

performed by the legendary voice actor, Frank

1:47

Welker. Here's Frank making cat

1:49

noises on a variety show in the 1970s.

1:57

In fact, in some Simpsons

1:59

episodes, Frank is specifically credited

2:02

as the voice of Snowball and the Simpsons

2:04

dog, Santa's Little Helper. If

2:08

that were a real girl scout, I'd have been bothered

2:10

by now. There's

2:14

also a classic scream that you'll probably

2:16

recognize. The sound bite is called,

2:19

Man Lets Out Gut-Rinching Scream and

2:21

Falls Into the Distance.

2:27

That scream was recorded in the late

2:30

70s by an unknown voice artist. It was

2:32

first used in a 1980 film called

2:34

The Ninth Configuration. During a

2:36

bar fight scene, a bad guy with a knife

2:38

lunges through a window. In

2:47

the mid 90s, the scream got a new

2:49

burst of popularity thanks to an action

2:51

movie called Broken Arrow. In

2:53

that movie, there's a character played by the

2:55

football player turned actor Howie Long.

2:58

In one scene, Howie's character gets kicked out

3:00

of a train which is traveling over a bridge.

3:03

As he falls down the cliff, you hear this.

3:11

Ever since then, this scream has been known

3:14

as the Howie Scream. But

3:17

when it comes to movie screams, there's one

3:20

scream to rule them all. And that

3:22

was the subject of one of our classic early

3:24

episodes. Recently, this

3:26

scream got some news coverage. These

3:28

articles said that the original recording session

3:30

had been rediscovered after being lost

3:33

for decades. If only these reporters

3:35

had been 20,000 Hz listeners, they could have heard

3:37

this so-called lost recording years

3:39

ago. To set the record straight, I

3:41

decided it was time to remix our original

3:44

episode and spruce it up a bit with a fresh

3:46

coat of sonic paint. As widely

3:48

known as the sound is, many people still

3:51

don't know where it came from. So,

3:53

let's find out.

4:14

The two screams you just heard came from Will

4:17

Ferrell and Anchorman and Mark Hamill

4:19

as Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back.

4:22

Movie screams seem like easy work, but

4:24

they're not. That's why some of the best

4:26

are so iconic. You have

4:28

scary ones like Captain Quint from

4:30

Jaws or

4:31

Janet

4:37

Lee from Psycho

4:42

and the original Scream Queen, Fay-Rae

4:45

from King Kong way back in 1933.

4:53

Then you've got non-horror screams, like

4:55

Kevin from Home Alone feeling the burn of Aftershave

4:58

and

4:58

Marv the Burglar from the same film when Kevin puts a tarantula

5:02

on his face.

5:33

But the most famous movie scream is

5:35

one you've heard, but maybe never

5:37

heard of,

5:38

The Wilhelm Scream.

5:59

you know, go-to sound effect that

6:02

sort of represents a lot more

6:04

than just the one sound. It's

6:06

fascinating how many of these sounds are actually

6:09

reused over and over and over.

6:13

You may be thinking, what's the Wilhelm scream?

6:16

If you think you've never heard it, it's been used

6:18

in movies such as Batman,

6:24

Star Wars,

6:27

Toy Story, Lord

6:30

of the Rings, Tropic

6:32

Thunder, Beauty

6:35

and the Beast, Team America,

6:40

Spaceballs,

6:41

Jurassic

6:43

World, Cars,

6:51

Indiana Jones, and

6:53

this barely scratches the surface.

7:01

When I was a kid growing up, I went to

7:03

Disneyland, I lived in LA, and I went to Disneyland, and

7:06

I watched movies, and I recorded movies off the

7:08

TV, and, you know, studied the soundtrack, and

7:11

I started to hear sound effects over and over. Wilhelm

7:14

was one of them, but there were many other, too. There

7:17

was a dog bark that is in the Pirates

7:19

of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland, and

7:22

I remember hearing it again in Mary Poppins

7:24

when I was watching that on TV once, and

7:27

I'm going, somebody must reuse these sound effects, and

7:30

it was a very early realization, and that

7:32

sort of led the way for my, you know, research

7:35

and fascination with how these sounds are collected

7:38

and reused and catalogued.

7:43

The Wilhelm Scream has been used in tons

7:45

of movies, but where did it come from?

7:48

We've done some sort of backtracking,

7:51

most of this done by Ben Bird himself, who is

7:53

the Star Wars sound effects designer, who started

7:56

using this as sort of a personal sound signature.

8:02

The name actually comes from what

8:04

is probably the second film it was used in, which

8:07

was Charge at Feather River, which was 1953 at Warner Brothers.

8:11

Poor private Wilhelm is at the end of

8:13

this party going by on horses. And

8:16

the leader yells back to him to, you know, pick

8:18

up your pace. And he says, oh, I'm just filling my pipe.

8:21

And in that moment, he gets an arrow in the leg and

8:23

lets out the scream. Wilhelm!

8:27

Yeah, I'll just fill my pipe.

8:37

They must have liked the Wilhelm scream a lot

8:40

because they ended up using it two more times in the

8:42

film. Once when a soldier is killed,

8:48

and another for an American Indian warrior

8:50

in battle.

8:55

The Charge at Feather River was the film that gave

8:57

Wilhelm its name, but it was the

8:59

second film it was used in. What was the

9:02

first?

9:05

It started at Warner Brothers. The

9:07

first film it was in was a Western called

9:09

Distant Drums, like Gary Cooper Western. Distant

9:12

Drums was released two years before the Charge

9:14

at Feather River in 1951. And

9:17

it had a scene where a man is walking

9:19

across the Florida Everglades

9:22

with other soldiers. And he's

9:24

bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. And

9:27

they needed a scream for that. Ben

9:35

found a memo in the Warner Brothers

9:37

archives that said that several

9:39

people came in to do sort of

9:41

post vocals for the

9:43

film. And we're pretty sure

9:46

that the screen was recorded in that session.

9:50

And one of the gentlemen on the list of people

9:53

was a guy named Sheb Woolley, who

9:56

is most famous

9:59

for his pups.

9:59

song, a purple people leader.

10:08

But he was a character actor and he was in a lot of

10:10

these old westerns.

10:13

We're pretty sure that he is responsible for the

10:15

scream. And many years later

10:18

I was able to put Ben Burt in

10:20

touch with Shebb's widow and

10:22

she was delighted. And she actually remembered

10:24

that Shebb used to talk about going in to

10:27

do sessions like that and screams and things

10:29

like that. So we're like 99% sure

10:31

it's Shebb Woolley.

10:33

Shebb Woolley sounds like a fascinating guy. A singer,

10:36

an on-screen actor, and a voice actor.

10:38

But how was the Wilhelm scream actually

10:40

captured on tape?

10:42

Well, thanks to Steve, we've acquired

10:44

the full length original recording of the session.

10:46

It was recorded from a Warner Brothers soundstage

10:49

in 1951 on the set of Distant

10:51

Drums. Remember, Shebb is not actually

10:53

in a river surrounded by alligators. He's

10:55

trying to create the sound of tremendous pain,

10:58

agony, and fear, but from the safe

11:00

surroundings of a film lot.

11:08

The session starts out, you hear

11:11

several people on a stage. We believe

11:13

it was actually recorded on a filming

11:16

soundstage and not a recording stage because

11:18

you hear several people mulling about. And

11:20

then you hear someone slate through and he says,

11:23

man getting bit by an alligator and

11:25

he screams. And you hear a director like shutting

11:27

everyone up. And then he tells the guy, okay.

11:32

And he asks for the first scream. Okay.

11:38

And it's pretty good. It's like a quick

11:40

screen. He does another one. And

11:44

then he asks for a little direction. You

11:49

know, I shared the frustration with the director. It's like,

11:51

no, that's not what I want. I want a real scream.

11:57

And he's getting closer, but it's still not quite. And

11:59

then the director

11:59

gives them something that motivates them to

12:02

do the classic scream that

12:04

we all recognize.

12:11

And then the next two are very similar to that.

12:18

We've actually used these, all

12:20

three of these last ones, as sort of the

12:23

official Wilhelm.

12:27

If this obscure scream was first used

12:29

back in 1951, how did it become so popular

12:31

that it's been used in

12:33

so many movies since then? We'll

12:35

find out after this.

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16:09

We're now pretty sure that Shev Woolley was the voice

16:11

behind the Wilhelm Scream. We also know

16:13

how it was recorded. But how did this spread

16:15

like wildfire and become the most iconic

16:18

movie scream in history?

16:22

Ben Burt went to college with

16:24

two guys, Rick Mitchell and Richard

16:27

Anderson. And Ben won

16:29

an Oscar for Raiders of Lost Ark for sound effects.

16:34

They were sort of doing this as a little

16:37

joke in film school at USC using

16:39

this scream that they remembered from all

16:41

these old westerns. And they started using

16:43

it in their short films at USC. And

16:45

when they went pro, they started sneaking

16:47

it into the films that they did for real,

16:50

real feature films.

16:51

For decades, this was a below-the-radar

16:53

thing that only sound designers knew about. Maybe

16:56

someone in the industry who used the Wilhelm Scream

16:58

themselves might recognize it in another film.

17:01

But it wasn't really a thing. Warner

17:03

Brothers used it quite a bit. It was in

17:05

their library.

17:07

And sound editors could just pull it and

17:09

use it. And up until the early 70s,

17:11

it was still getting used out of Warner Brothers

17:13

exclusively. And Ben

17:16

tracked it down when he was doing research for Star

17:18

Wars. He said, oh, I got to use this. This

17:20

is a favorite of mine. He tracked down the master and he started

17:23

using it in all the Star Wars films. All

17:32

the Indiana Jones films.

17:41

And that's when I started to

17:43

really take notice and started maintaining

17:45

a list of all, as best I could. I

17:48

mean, there are hundreds of films.

17:51

When I started working professionally in

17:53

the mid to late 80s, I started

17:56

sort of pushing Wilhelm and we

17:58

used it in quite a few films.

17:59

And I think I sort of overdid

18:02

it because it really got noticed

18:04

by a lot of people. Ben Burke started

18:06

this, and Steve kind of took the baton

18:09

and ran with it. He was just doing it as

18:11

a little in-joke, and then I sort of pushed the

18:13

envelope a little in the late 80s and

18:15

early 90s. We used it in everything. I even

18:17

got it in a goofy movie. I was the sound designer

18:20

of a goofy movie, and there's absolutely no

18:22

business being in a goofy movie. Rock,

18:24

stand, please don't forget me. I

18:26

will return someday. Oh,

18:29

why maybe it's rocky when I do?

18:34

And like many things, when the internet came along,

18:36

everything changed. And then when I published

18:39

the list online on a movie

18:41

history website I run, I published

18:44

this list and sort of the definitive history

18:46

of Wilhelm. And that's pretty much when

18:48

the dam broke.

18:50

While Ben introduced the Wilhelm scream to people

18:52

like George Lucas, it sounds like Steve

18:54

has done his fair share. I wondered if there's

18:56

a good story about any directors he brought into

18:59

the Wilhelm Club.

19:00

We were very lucky at our sound shop. We

19:02

worked with a lot of directors

19:05

over and over who kept coming back. And some

19:07

first timers that went on to be

19:09

really great and do some amazing things.

19:15

One of them is a guy I'm

19:17

sure you've heard of named Quentin Tarantino. We

19:19

did his first film, Reservoir Dogs,

19:22

and there are a couple of Wilhelms in that one. How

19:24

did you get up? Shot my way out. I

19:26

started shooting so I bled my way out of there.

19:28

Move it! Get out of

19:30

the way!

19:33

And I will never forget, we

19:35

cut it in and then when we were dubbing

19:37

the film, we pointed it out to him and told

19:39

him the history. We actually, we schooled him on it. And

19:42

he loved it. Quentin's a huge movie

19:45

fan and just eats that stuff up. And

19:47

I had a little tiny black and white TV in my office

19:49

and I turned it on. And lo and behold,

19:51

Distant Drums is on the Saturday

19:54

afternoon film. So I stuck my

19:56

head into the dub stage and said, Hey guys, you remember

19:58

I told you about that screen while the movie was on?

19:59

The movie's on right now that it was recorded,

20:02

and Quentin went nuts. Oh my god, really?

20:04

Really? Do you know when it's coming up? Can you tell

20:06

us when it's coming up? Yeah, I could probably give

20:08

you like five minutes notice. Okay, do that and we'll

20:10

take a break. And sure enough, I did, and

20:13

I called him in. There's

20:14

like 10 guys in my little office. And

20:17

as soon as it came on, Quentin was screaming, that's

20:19

in my movie! But

20:21

Quentin Tarantino isn't the only modern director

20:24

with a soft spot for Wilhelm. Peter

20:26

Jackson was another one when it was in the

20:28

Two Towers. He apparently told the

20:31

mixers to turn it up, make

20:33

it louder. The Wilhelm Scream is in all

20:35

three Lord of the Rings movies and all

20:37

three Hobbit movies.

20:48

Like many movie styles or special effects,

20:51

they eventually fade out. So has

20:53

interest in using the Wilhelm Scream started

20:55

to die down?

20:58

It's still used all the time. It's in

21:01

commercials. I'll turn on the TV and all here in an Exxon

21:03

commercial or something. A week does not go

21:06

by where I don't get an email or a message

21:08

from someone saying, I heard it and such and

21:10

such. Hey, we're on a dub stage in

21:12

Australia, putting it in some

21:14

little movie or, you know, hey, it's going to

21:16

be in a Twix commercial. It's going to start airing in

21:19

December, you know, that kind of thing. You know, kids

21:21

coming out of film school are eager to use

21:23

it too. And there's a scene in the Judy Garland

21:25

Stars Born where it's actually completely in

21:27

the clear and you can notch out the

21:28

classic Take Number Four, Wilhelm. And

21:31

people are stealing it out of that to use in their

21:33

student films and things like that. It's

21:34

pretty crazy. Van accused me of starting

21:37

a cult and I'd have to agree with him. So

21:41

why does the movie industry continue to use

21:43

the Wilhelm Scream? Is it cliche

21:46

or cache? Maybe it's a connector,

21:48

a through line, the way to be a link in

21:50

the chain of movie history from 1951 to today

21:55

to share a common bond with directors like George

21:57

Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson,

21:59

and Quentin Tarantino.

22:01

It's sort of a way of communicating

22:04

with others in our craft. It's like

22:06

a way of saying hi. One of my dear

22:09

friends, another Oscar winner, Dave

22:11

Stone, he equated it to dogs

22:13

on a fire hydrant and other dogs

22:15

would come by and, oh yeah, Sam's been here.

22:18

We put it in there to see if others

22:20

of our kind get noticed and I for

22:22

sure, if I hear it in a movie that I wasn't aware

22:24

it was in, I'll wait and look at the credits more

22:26

closely and say, oh yeah, so-and-so did this. Yeah,

22:29

that dirty dog, he snuck it in.

22:51

20,000 Hertz is produced out of the studios of

22:53

DeFacto Sound. Find out more at

22:56

defactosound.com. This

22:58

episode was produced and edited by Kevin

23:00

Edds. It was story edited by Casey

23:03

Emmerling. With help from Grace East. It

23:05

was sound designed and mixed by Nick Spradlin.

23:08

And Joel Boyder. A huge thanks

23:10

to film historian and sound effects archivist,

23:13

Steve Lee, who's heading up the Hollywood

23:15

Sound Museum project. The museum will

23:17

be a destination for fans, students, scholars,

23:19

and professionals, where you'll be able to discover

23:21

the art of creating sound for film, TV,

23:24

and other media through exhibits and educational

23:26

programs. Please help get this great

23:28

cause off the ground by visiting hollywoodsoundmuseum.org.

23:32

I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.

23:45

Congratulations to Matt Barry

23:47

for correctly guessing last episode's mystery

23:49

sound.

23:52

That's a scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where

23:54

the battle for the lost ark

23:56

is a battle for the lost ark.

23:59

The bad guys take the lid off the Ark of the

24:02

Covenant. The scraping sound you hear when

24:04

the lid gets removed is actually the lid

24:06

of sound designer Ben Burtt's toilet tank.

24:09

Oh. And

24:13

here's this episode's mystery sound. Ah.

24:21

If you know that sound, submit your guess at

24:23

the web address mystery.20k.org. Anyone

24:27

who guesses it right will be entered to win a super

24:29

soft 20,000 hertz t-shirt.

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Thanks again to our sponsors, BandLab, Masterclass,

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and Liquid IV. We are almost entirely

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for 20% off anything. Finally,

25:07

a quick reminder to send in your personal

25:09

sound stories at the web address hi.20k.org.

25:14

Also, since you're done with this episode, go check

25:16

out another 20K episode. I've

25:18

been making this show for seven years, so we

25:20

have a ton of amazing sound stories in the

25:22

back catalog. The episode you just heard

25:25

is one of our classics, and there's a ton more

25:27

where that came from. If you wanna hear

25:29

stories about stuff like the Netflix to dumb,

25:31

the THX Deep Note, or the NBC

25:33

chimes, we've got you covered.